The Globe and Mail |
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MAY
18, 1968
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Et two, tulip queen |
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By
LEWIS SEALE
Globe and Mail Reporter |
The festival this year will continue until
the end of the month and events include a car rally leaving from Toronto
on May 25, a canoe regatta, a concert with the RCMP band and the Nether-lands
singers and dancers, and a fireworks display. |
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| OTTAWA—“Atta boy, Pierre,” a
man in the crowd shouted as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau opene Ottawa's
annual tulip festival yesterday and kissed tulip queen Helen Hughes twice. A crowd of 1,000 or more jammed a short section of the Spark Street Mall for the brief, noon-hour ceremonies under cloudy skies that carried out their threat of rain just as Mr. Trudeau was leaving. Across the city, the first of a million tulips planted by the National Capital Commission were starting to bloom. “As long as I can stay in Ottawa, because of the flowers and other reasons, I will try to do so,” he said in a bantering speech. “It is nice that we have this way to indicate that we believe a great deal in flower power.” The tulip festival has its origins in the exile of the Dutch royal family here during the Second World War. The first blooms were sent by Queen Juliana in a gesture of gratitude. |
| Article reprinted with permission of The Globe and
Mail CP PICTURE ARCHIVE(Chuck Mitchell) |